Cerillion Blog

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to bite into everyday lives, consumption habits have been massively upended by closures and social distancing measures. We’ve previously covered how the telecoms world is faring amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but how are the many subscription services responding in this time of crisis, and what lessons are there in these cases?

Service providers are outdoing one another to make 5G and FTTP announcements. But where are the new revenues going to come from to pay for these investments? Many are turning their attention to the business market. But with more people working from home - either for environmental reasons or, latterly, for business continuity purposes during the global coronavirus crisis – and many others becoming entrepreneurs or juggling side gigs, the business market itself is changing. Guest blogger, Teresa Cottam, looks at these changes and offers some pointers as to how to position for the new opportunities being presented.

Last month, Cerillion was joined by clients from around the world for its latest product forum – the first to take place wholly online – setting out the roadmap for its software solutions for the next year. Adam Hughes reports back from the virtual meeting room.

Cerillion is a couple of weeks into remote working, with every department striving to ensure that it’s business as usual. Adam Hughes spoke with Amit McCann, Delivery Director at Cerillion, to see what effect the coronavirus is having on the company’s projects.

The global outbreak of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, continues to dominate the news cycle, as it wreaks havoc on all aspects of life; the telecoms industry has been no different. With providers having their usual processes disrupted and users even more dependent on their communications services while in isolation, how is the industry responding to its greatest ever challenge?

Once the standard-bearers of subscriptions, print newspaper revenues are increasingly under threat in an ever more competitive market of 24-hour and online news. With papers betting big on digital subscriptions to keep the presses running, what strategies are the biggest publications adopting to avoid becoming tomorrow’s fish and chip paper?

Despite all the focus on the business dividends, it’s the consumer who is the ultimate beneficiary of the subscription billing model. While subscriptions have been around for decades, the unprecedented level of service control now offered has not. But beyond the mere convenience, what are the biggest benefits of subscriptions for customers?

Commuters, rejoice! The gradual rollout of 4G connectivity on the London Underground begins this month; how will this change your Tube journey? And why has it taken so long to get connected?

For all the success stories of the booming subscription industry, we cannot forget there are some high-profile failures of the model too. MoviePass, the cinema ticket subscription service, was once the stuff that dreams are made of; now it’s a business for ants. Adam Hughes performs the post-mortem on this now-bankrupt cinema subscription service to see what their mistakes could mean for other subscription businesses.

MWC Barcelona is coming up once again, with Cerillion demonstrating its full product suite alongside the latest industry developments, innovations and more. Brian Coombs, Cerillion Product Director, shares what he hopes to see around the exhibition and compares this with what he expects to be the reality.

2020 promises to be an exciting year for the telecoms industry with new-age technologies, new ecosystems and advanced use cases coming to the fore. Rupali Srivastava examines the top five trends expected to propel the industry forward this year.

As we usher in a new decade for the subscription industry, there is no doubt that businesses in the space will find more ways to engage customers, create new revenue streams and innovate with unique approaches. Shashank Venkat looks into the trends that mark the beginnings of a period where the subscription model is poised to become the default for most businesses.

AT&T has joined the likes of T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint in launching the commercial rollout of its 5G network in the US. Starting with 10 cities, the telco is aiming for nationwide coverage in the first half of 2020.

Recently, Vodafone surprised the telecoms industry by announcing that it is thinking about shifting its entire European mobile sites to Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) technology. MTN has also announced a new partnership with Parallel Wireless to deploy 5,000 OpenRAN sites in Africa. Is this the spark OpenRAN needs to succeed?

Microservices architecture has been hyped as the latest and greatest software model that will increase your flexibility, accelerate time-to-market and underpin your digital transformations. However, it’s not without its drawbacks. Brian Coombs, Product Director at Cerillion, explains why a pragmatic approach is required to ensure microservices are used where there are significant benefits to be gained, and not just for the sake of it.

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon have formed the Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative in a bid to make a strong case for the Rich Communications Services (RCS) standard yet again. Can RCS garner mainstream adoption?

Following our 20th birthday on 4th October, we have been sharing our highlights of #TheCerillionYears on our social media channels. Here’s a special blog post that looks back on Cerillion’s most important milestones and the evolution of the industry over the past two decades.

Telcos are slowly warming up to the potential of Open Radio Access Networks (OpenRAN). Vodafone recently became the first telco in the UK to start OpenRAN trials.

Cerillion turns 20 today and we are proud of everything we have achieved so far. Here's a special blog post dedicated to our victories, the challenges we faced on the way and the changing technological landscape over the last two decades.

The subscription model is all about putting subscribers first and having a ‘grace period’ for payments and renewals is another way to show customers that your subscription business cares about them. In fact, Apple has recently rolled out this feature for App Store subscriptions highlighting its significance.

A new Gartner report has indicated that 5G infrastructure spend is set to boom over the next 12 months. With investments in 5G expected to generate significant returns, will the telecoms industry finally see a resurgence?

The world takes internet communication for granted today, not giving much attention to the backbone driving this phenomenon. In fact, not many people know that 97% of global communications is carried by submarine cables in the sea and not through satellites as popularly believed. Dino Cano presents this interesting story.

Open Access models are levelling the playing field for operators by offering a convenient plug-and-play infrastructure without heavy capital expenditure. In the third and last part of this blog series, Mukesh Binani looks closely at the revenue model, technical architecture, key features and implementation of Open Access in Fibre Networks.

MWC 2019 is now behind us, and as usual the event showcased the latest technologies dotting the telecom landscape. Based on our learnings at MWC and the interactions with our customers and partners, we have identified five key trends that will drive the telecoms industry forward this year. There may be no big surprises, but rather a positive reaffirmation of the direction the stakeholders should take.

The recently released results of the TM Forum’s bi-annual Digital Transformation Tracker serve as another reminder to CSPs to fast track their transformation initiatives. This third report in the tracker series, highlights the importance of network transformation and its role as a growth driver for telcos.

As cloud platforms become ubiquitous, iPaaS solutions are enabling businesses to simplify data integration, streamline integration flows, improve efficiency and reduce costs. Cerillion Skyline helps you maximise the capabilities present within iPaaS platforms.

The iPhone may be Apple’s biggest talking point, but another less spoken about business segment is slowly becoming a cash cow for the company. Shashank Venkat investigates Apple’s growing services business.

In the first part of our 5G blog series, we highlighted some of the key reasons for resetting BSS. In this second part, Richard Doughty looks at the benefits 5G will deliver to operators and their end-customers.

As telcos prepare for the upcoming 5G revolution, an important next step should be to overhaul existing Business Support Systems (BSS). In the first part of this blog series, Richard Doughty highlights some of the key 5G use cases and builds a case for resetting BSS.

Open Access Networks (OAN) help telcos leverage the power of the sharing economy and accelerate progress through a collaborative approach. As OANs are increasingly adopted for mobile communication under the MVNO/E/A model, Mukesh Binani examines the model implemented in Fibre Networks.

The healthcare sector is perfectly poised for subscriptions, and there is plenty of room for growth among the different areas of the industry. Faisal Hasan examines the reasons why subscriptions are a natural fit for the healthcare industry and looks at some successful examples.

The GDPR will have a long-standing impact on the regulatory environment in the European union. As we approach the compliance deadline, we want to reassure our customers about our continued commitment towards data protection. Leonardo Hodgson, Product Manager at Cerillion, lists out the steps that we have taken to help businesses become GDPR compliant.

Open Access Networks (OAN) help bring the benefits of the sharing economy to the telecoms industry, fast tracking its digital transformation. In the first part of this blog series, Mukesh Binani explores the key benefits and challenges of the open access approach.

In line with the EU’s vision for a digital single market, new digital media portability rules have come into force from this month. The regulation mandates that paid online content providers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video must offer cross-border portability to their subscribers. Shashank Venkat presents the details.

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the showpiece event for the telecoms industry and is in many ways, the perfect launchpad for future technologies. So, what were some of the key trends emerging from MWC 2018? Brian Coombs recaps the event by picking out the themes that caught his attention.

Blockchain technology holds great potential for various industries, including the telecoms sector. Telcoin, a new cryptocurrency company which recently became an official member of the GSMA, aims to bridge the gap that exists between telcos and blockchain technology. So, what’s the project all about? Shashank Venkat presents the details.

Unlimited data plans are back in vogue after many big carriers started offering them again last year. While simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing, do such flat-rate bundles risk reducing operators to the proverbial dumb pipes? Dominic Smith seeks answers.